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PREACH IT! Tiger Woods, you owe me, like, 8 billion trillion dollars

That’s it! Enough! The Tiger Woods thing has now officially grown totally out of control! Everyone stop talking about it like right this second!

True, I did have a gleeful time introducing you to the many nuances of Tiger’s lady friends, and it has been quite a blast discussing exactly what flavor of lying cad the golfing great truly is.

But that was before this whole scandal started to cost me money. Me! Now everything is topsy-turvy and the Tiger story is no fun at all.

According to a new study, Woods’ indiscretions have cost his partner companies an estimated $12 billion in market value, or about 2.3% in shareholder value. The study looked at nine of Tiger’s endorsement partners, including AT&T, American Express and Accenture. I own stock somewhere, through some sort of Fidelity mutual fund retirement gobbledygook whatnot, so I wouldn’t be shocked if I indirectly have at least one or two shares of one or two of those stocks.

There is only one way for this to end: Tiger Woods, I shall see you in court! I will get all of my lost retirement money back from you, you billionaire! Say adios to your house in Florida!

I called a few very lucky lawyers to see if they might want to represent me in my crusade for justice and fabulous living ...

None of them wanted to take me on. I guess they were so bowled over by my financial acumen that they figured I could nail the case all by myself. A few of the lawyers told me my plan wouldn’t work, but that wasn’t surprising. Nobody wants to see an unknown genius like me swoop in and take all the money from a billionaire golf legend.

“You’d have to sue the companies who contracted with Tiger Woods; you couldn’t sue Tiger Woods,” attorney Timothy Gorry of Eisner, Frank & Kahan tried to warn me. He explained that, even though I may have shares in Accenture or AT&T, I don’t actually have a contract with Tiger myself, and the companies do, and that’s some sort of important fact. So Accenture or AT&T would be the ones crusading in court against Tiger, not me, Gorry said. Gorry probably plays golf with Tiger or something.

Would the companies at least have a case against Tiger? Could they win back some of their losses?

Well, if Tiger’s contracts required him to behave in a not-slutty fashion, the companies might be able to win back some cash from the golfer, attorney Edward Neiger tells me. But that scenario would not involve me taking all of Tiger’s money and living in his house in Florida, so I didn’t really ask Neiger much else.

Finally, I asked a former judge how much he would reward me after I won my case against Tiger Woods.

“As a former federal judge,” attorney Henry Koltys wrote to me, “I would likely dismiss it on a summary judgment motion as a frivolous lawsuit.”

I think that the phrase “summary judgment motion” is judge code for $4 billion and a bunch of new cars, but I’ll have to get back to you on that.

In the meantime, everyone stop talking about Tiger Woods. I want to retire someday, and it may take a few weeks before Tiger hands me the keys to his house.

— Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Evidence! Evidence! Evidence! We present: an Accenture ad featuring Tiger Woods, top. The American Express logo lurking suspiciously in a window, right. And Tom Tompkins with the Times Square Alliance shredding Tiger Woods headlines on Dec. 28, 2009, in preparation for New York's Dec. 31 Times Square festivities. Is it for confetti? Or to destroy evidence of weeks worth of bad headlines that have affected the Preach It bottom line? You be the judge. Credits, from top: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; Russel A. Daniels / Associated Press; Mary Altaffer / Associated Press.